AN EDUCATION chief knighted for his services to the sector is spearheading a bid to open two “free schools” to stop pupils fleeing a Merseyside borough.

But the plan has already prompted union fears the centrally-funded schools will cream off pupils and staff at existing secondaries in Knowsley.

The proposals have been launched by not-for-profit organisation “Great Schools for All Children” – a small group of experienced education officials – which in September opened its first free school, the Warrington Leadership Academy.

The free school in Warrington is based on a model of longer school days and smaller classes

And now the group, led by former Merseyside teacher and headteacher Sir Iain Hall, has its sights on setting up two more of the schools which can set their own curriculum, pay and conditions in Huyton and Kirkby.

Sir Iain, knighted for services to education in 2002, said the schools would have an emphasis on adding “aspiration to the curriculum”.

The high schools would have places for 120 pupils each year and include sixth forms, eventually catering for 840 students.

Unnamed sites for both schools, which could open by 2014, are on the radar of the group.

But the first hurdle is to attract 500 signatures in support for both ventures in order to submit an expression of interest to the Government.

Confirmation of the plans comes days after the ECHO revealed how Huyton secondary Christ the King – one of the borough’s flagship new breed of schools, known as Centres for Learning – was handed a worst possible Grade 4 ranking by Ofsted.

And, despite annual improvements, only 40.8% of GCSE students managed five Cs or above this year – way off the 58.6% achieved nationally.

The plans will be put to Knowsley residents at a series of public meetings. But with Knowsley schools getting an estimated £6,500 funding per pupil, teaching union the NASUWT fears the new schools could cost existing secondaries millions in lost funding and increase empty desks across the borough.

Damien McNulty, NASUWT local negotiating secretary for Knowsley said: “These schools are set up in isolation for parents to provide an elite- based education for their kids.”

But Sir Iain, a former teacher at Brookfield School in Kirkby and head at the former Liverpool secondary Breckfield Community School, said the free schools would work with existing providers .

The schools, he said, would be targeted at “the six hundred 11-year-olds who leave the borough for neighbouring authorities each year”.

Free schools do not have to employ fully qualified teachers.

But Sir Iain stressed, as in the case of the Warrington school, that only fully qualified staff would be recruited on wages “above national pay scales”.